Reborn in Tokyo: From Heiress to Global Tycoon

Chapter 84 The Red Balloons of Napa Valley

In April 1988, morning mist shrouded the waist of Mount St. Helena in Napa Valley. The air was crisp and filled with the damp scent of earth and the tangy aroma of fermented fruit.

At six o'clock in the morning, at the hot air balloon launch site.

A huge blower roared, pumping cool air into the colorful nylon cloth spread out on the grass. As the sphere gradually inflated, ground crew pulled the valve on the propane burner.

"boom--"

A two-meter-long orange-red flame erupted, the heat instantly distorting the surrounding air. Accompanied by a deafening roar of burning, the enormous sphere slowly rose upright.

Amy stood beside the wicker hanging basket, her hands gripping the leather handrails tightly, her face pale.

"Ni-Saionji-kun..." Amy's voice trembled as she looked at the enormous thing above her, supported only by heat. "Is this thing really safe, since it has no mechanical transmission structure at all?"

"This is the most primitive way of flying, Amy."

Satsuki, wearing a khaki flight jacket and goggles, looked up and examined the color of the flames coming from the burner.

"No instrument panel, no autopilot, only wind and fire."

With Fujita's help, she climbed into the hanging basket.

"Come on up."

Amy hesitated for a moment, then gritted her teeth and climbed in. She immediately crouched in the corner of the basket to lower her center of gravity.

"Are you ready?"

The operator, an American with a large beard, pulled the valve again.

"Boom—Boom—"

Flames continued to erupt, and hot air shot straight overhead. The gondola swayed slightly and lifted off the ground.

There was no engine roar; the intermittent whirring of the burners drowned out all other sounds. During the brief intervals when the burners stopped, the only sound was the faint rustling of the wind through the cables.

People and vehicles on the ground rapidly shrank. Pickup trucks became rectangular blocks of color, neatly arranged grapevines turned into green stripes, and the winding Napa River resembled a reflective silver line.

"Stand up, Amy."

Satsuki stood by the basket, took off her goggles, and let the cold wind from high above tousle her hair.

Don't look at your feet, look into the distance.

Amy, trembling, gripped the basketball hoop and managed to stand upright. She avoided looking directly down at the horizon.

The sun had just peeked over the Waka Mountains to the east, and golden sunlight bathed the entire valley.

The once gloomy vineyard was instantly illuminated, dewdrops glistened on the leaves, and the morning mist evaporated and dissipated in the sunlight, revealing vast fields below where emerald green and golden yellow intertwined.

"Wow……"

Amy's mouth dropped open, and a thin fog formed on her glasses.

The physiological fear gradually subsided in the face of the open scenery.

"Down here..." Satsuki stretched out her hand, pointing to the vast expanse of land beneath her feet, "every inch of soil is buried with US dollars."

"This is America's new rich. Forty years ago, there were only a few poorly managed wineries here, and farmers grew cheap plums and walnuts. But now, a bottle of wine here can sell for hundreds of dollars, and land prices have increased a thousandfold."

Satsuki looked at the neat rows of fields with a calm expression.

"This is not just about agriculture. They have packaged originally cheap agricultural products into expensive luxury goods, giving them a social value far exceeding that of liquids."

The balloons drifted slowly past a magnificent complex of buildings.

That's the Opus One winery. The massive limestone building is half-hidden in the mound, and the circular colonnaded arcade stands out starkly against the backdrop of the pristine fields.

"That's where we're going to have lunch."

Satsuki made a hand gesture to the operator.

"Go down. The wind has changed."

……

Noon. Opus One Winery.

The restaurant here is not open to the public; it only serves VIPs by reservation. Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows stretches an endless expanse of vineyards, and sunlight streams unobstructed onto the white tablecloths.

The waiter brought over two glasses of dark red liquid.

"The 1984 Opus One," the waiter introduced. "It's one of our winery's best vintages."

Satsuki picked up her wine glass and gently swirled it. The wine, clinging to the glass, slowly dripped down, revealing a deep, ruby ​​red color.

"Give it a try, Amy."

Amy imitated Satsuki and picked up the huge crystal glass.

She took a small, careful sip.

"Well……"

Amy's brows furrowed instantly.

It didn't have the sweetness of grape juice I expected; instead, it had a strong astringent taste, mixed with the spiciness of alcohol, and the bitterness went down my tongue all the way to my throat.

"It's...so astringent." Amy stuck out her tongue. "Is this really worth that much money?"

Satsuki didn't laugh. She took a sip of sake, closed her eyes, and savored the complex layers of flavor.

"That's the taste of tannins."

She put down her wine glass.

"The general public doesn't like this taste; they prefer sweet soda. But with time, this astringency will transform into a complex aroma. The same applies to technology."

Amy nodded, but still quietly pushed her wine glass away a little and picked up the ice water next to her.

Just then, a burst of argument in a corner of the restaurant broke the tranquility.

"No! This won't do! This is unbearable to look at!"

The sound came from a round table diagonally behind.

Two middle-aged men were sitting there. They were wearing casual polo shirts and had thinning hair.

Instead of food, their table was set with a bulky-looking beige computer—an Apple Macintosh II.

In this classically styled winery restaurant, the machine flashing with electronic lights stands out conspicuously.

One of the men, who had a thick beard, was pointing at the screen, looking agitated and even somewhat exasperated.

"John, calm down," another man across from him said helplessly, holding a sandwich. "The hardware limitations are there, there's nothing we can do about it."

"Um...it doesn't seem like someone who's here to drink."

Amy looked in the direction of the voice and whispered.

Her gaze was instantly drawn to the computer.

"Mac II..." Amy squinted. "That's a model Apple just released last year, using a Motorola 68020 processor."

"Oh?" Satsuki cut off a piece of steak. "What are they doing?"

"I don't know much about this either, but it looks like they're running some kind of very difficult program."

Amy turned to the side and stretched her neck.

The screen didn't display the usual green characters, nor did it have that familiar black and white smiley face icon.

The screen displays a photograph.

A black and white, somewhat blurry portrait of a woman.

The bearded man was manipulating a mouse, dragging a slider on the screen. As he moved, the image on the screen began to change jerkily, and the cursor movement showed a noticeable delay.

"Damn it! It's too slow! And the edges are all jagged!" the bearded man complained. "How can we show this to the printing press?"

"Sawtooth..."

Amy pushed up her glasses.

"Um, Saionji-kun..." Amy pointed to the screen, "Their display is terrible. That jagged edge is probably a resolution or sampling issue. But the Mac II's graphics card should support higher resolutions."

She stared at the screen, her eyes filled with confusion. For someone accustomed to handling circuit boards and hardware signals, the technology of displaying "photos" on a screen was both novel and awkward due to its choppy operation.

"Do you want to go and see?" Satsuki wiped her mouth.

"May I?"

"certainly."

Satsuki stood up and picked up the glass of red wine she hadn't finished.

"Since it's a technical issue, that's your area of ​​expertise. Go see what they're doing."

……

Satsuki led Amy to the table.

Excuse me.

Satsuki's voice interrupted the two men's argument.

John Warnock and Charles Geschke looked up.

They saw a well-dressed Asian girl smiling at them. Behind her stood a bespectacled girl staring blankly at a computer screen.

"I apologize for interrupting your lunch."

Satsuki pointed to the computer on the table.

"My friend is very interested in this machine. She noticed that the screen refresh rate seemed choppy and its operation was somewhat abnormal."

Warnock paused for a moment, then gave a wry smile: "Anomaly? No, it's just too tired. It can't handle our program."

He pointed to the black and white photo on the screen.

"We're trying to get this computer to display photorealistic images and be able to edit them. But..."

He moved the mouse slightly. The cursor on the screen moved after a half-second delay, and the lines along the edges of the photo showed a distinct stepped shape.

"As you can see, the computation is enormous."

Amy moved closer.

She couldn't understand the complex menus on the screen; that was the domain of software engineers. But she could understand the arrangement of the screen's pixels.

"that……"

Amy mustered her courage and pointed to the edge of the screen.

"It's not a broken graphics card," she whispered. "The pixels are lit. Is it... is the data transmission not keeping up?"

Warnock looked at the girl with some surprise.

"You understand hardware?"

"A little bit..." Amy nodded. "My family manufactures circuit boards."

"That's right. We need to calculate every single point in this photo before displaying it. We simply don't have enough memory, and the CPU can't handle it."

"Calculate every point?"

Amy watched the slowly refreshing images on the screen.

"Why calculate every single point at once? Why not calculate only a portion during the preview?"

She drew a horizontal line on the screen with her finger.

"Just like a television signal, it's interlaced scanning. Or it only displays a low-resolution image. Once the changes are finalized, then all the points are calculated."

Warnock was taken aback by those words.

He was looking at the screen when he suddenly slammed his hand on the table.

"Chuck! Did you hear that? Low-resolution preview!"

His opponent, Gerschke, frowned: "John, we're using bitmap graphics. If we lower the resolution, the details will be lost..."

"No, no, no! I mean during the operation!" Warnock gestured excitedly. "We're calculating the entire image in real time right now. What if we only calculate a quarter, or even a tenth, of the pixels while dragging the slider? We could use a lower-resolution image instead of a higher-resolution one for the preview!"

"That would be several times faster! Although the preview image might be blurry, it would be smooth enough during operation! Release the mouse before rendering the entire image!"

After thinking for a few seconds, Gerschke's eyes lit up.

"Proxy mode... or pyramid sampling. It is indeed a way to solve memory bottlenecks."

The two tech enthusiasts instantly became engrossed in a new discussion, completely forgetting about the two girls beside them.

Amy looked at them blankly. She didn't actually know anything about "pyramid sampling"; she was just making it up based on her experience repairing televisions in a factory.

"It seems your suggestion was very helpful."

Satsuki's voice rang in Amy's ear.

She pulled out a chair and sat down gracefully.

"Gentlemen, now that we have a solution, would you mind giving me a few minutes?"

Satsuki placed the black business card with gold foil on the table and pushed it in front of the two of them.

"I am Saionji Satsuki. I am very interested in your software that is currently 'torturing' computers."

Warnock stopped the discussion, picked up the business card, and glanced at it.

"SA Investment?"

He sized up Satsuki, a hint of wariness in his eyes.

"If you're here to sell office buildings or stocks, you've probably come to the wrong place."

"I'm not selling the property."

Satsuki pointed to the black and white photo on the screen.

"I want to buy that."

"Buy software?" Warnock laughed. "This software isn't finished yet, it doesn't even have a name. Besides, it's just a tool for professional printing plants."

"No, it's not for printing plants."

Satsuki shook her head.

She turned to look at Amy.

"Amy, if you used this software to replace the person in this photo with yourself, or changed the color of her clothes, would you find it interesting?"

Amy looked at the screen and imagined it for a moment.

"Change the color of the clothes?" Amy's eyes lit up. "Like the ones we see in the magazine? We can change them without having to take new photos?"

"right."

"That's amazing!" Amy exclaimed excitedly. "That means I can change my school uniform to pink...it's incredible!"

Satsuki turned around and looked at the two founders.

"Did you hear that?"

"This is its future."

"It can be more than just a tool for printing factory workers. It can also be a tool for ordinary people like her, for those who want to alter reality on a screen."

"In the future, the content displayed on screens will become increasingly important. People will no longer just look at text; they will look at images, edit images, and even create images."

Satsuki's voice was soft, and she maintained a polite smile on her face.

"I own S-Collection, the largest fashion retail group in Japan (this is a lie), as well as an expanding entertainment company."

"I can not only give you money, but also the most direct application scenarios."

"I think nothing is more convincing than having Chanel models appear in your software, right?"

Warnock and Gerschke exchanged a glance.

They saw shock in each other's eyes.

They always positioned this software as a high-end publishing tool, but never imagined that it could become a popular creative tool.

"Miss Saionji".

Warnock dropped his casual expression and sat up straight.

"Although the idea is crazy... I have to admit, it's very appealing."

He glanced at Amy, who was still staring at the screen studying the pixels. He didn't look down on them because of their age; everyone in this restaurant was either rich or powerful.

"Moreover, your friend's suggestion just now... really hit the nail on the head."

"Meet me at my office in Mountain View tomorrow morning." Warnock put away his business card. "We can discuss the specific details of the collaboration."

"no problem."

Satsuki stood up and raised her wine glass.

"Then let's wish ourselves well in changing the way people see the world."

……

The afternoon sun was shining brightly as we left Opus One winery.

Amy was still savoring the conversation, her face flushed with excitement, but also a little confused.

"Saionji-kun, that software... can it really work like magic? I saw how complicated it was to operate, requiring inputting parameters and stuff."

"It's very complicated now."

Satsuki got into the car and took off her hat.

"So we give them money to hide the complicated stuff and leave only the simple buttons."

"Moreover, they're not just good at making image editing software. In the future, as long as you need to use a computer, you won't be able to do without those two people."

The car started and drove away from Napa Valley.

The vineyards on both sides rushed past, turning into a blurry green light and shadow.

Amy, clutching her backpack, suddenly asked:

"Saionji-kun, do you think future computers will all be like that one, able to display photos and play music?"

"certainly."

Satsuki looked out the window.

"Not only that. Future computers will also allow you to see people on the other side of the world and buy things from all over the world."

"What we are doing now is providing the tools for that future."

The wind rustled through the grape leaves.

"Fujita."

Satsuki pressed the intercom on the partition.

"Where are you going, young lady?"

"Let's go back to the hotel. We need to get a good night's sleep."

Satsuki stretched like a cat, then covered her mouth and yawned.

"There's another tough battle ahead tomorrow."

......

......

......

Opus One Winery:

Now you can visit and sample the wine by making a reservation a month in advance. Interested readers can give it a try. The address is 7900 St. Helena Highway Oakville, CA 94562.

Apple Macintosh II:

The Macintosh was a high-end personal computer launched by Apple in 1987. It was the first Mac model to support a color display and feature an open expansion slot.

Interlaced scanning:

A display technology used in traditional analog television (CRT). To save bandwidth, the electron beam does not draw the entire image at once, but instead draws odd-numbered rows (1, 3, 5...) first, then even-numbered rows (2, 4, 6...), utilizing the persistence of vision in the human eye to form a complete picture.

Agent model/pyramid sampling:

One optimization technique involves the software temporarily resetting the high-resolution original image when the user performs dragging, zooming, or other similar actions. Instead, it displays a low-resolution thumbnail (a proxy) to smooth the operation. Once the user releases the mouse, the system then recalculates and displays the high-resolution original image.

Based on the feedback received, I have significantly reduced the number of science articles and the level of detail. Does this arrangement meet everyone's requirements?